The most suspicious of looks is plastered on his face as he joins the god, still looking as if Unicron stretched and contorted him in several directions.
“…Why?”
“Why not? From what I’ve been learning, and can see with your current state, you went through quite the ordeal with a fragment of Unicron. I haven’t seen this happen in a very long time.”
The deity wasn’t in the state of Prophet as others were used to seeing him. Primus looked like a full knight in armor with wings draped at his sides and loosely cloaked over his shoulders. It was a form better suited to his immense power. As was the size to match Megatron’s new appearance.
“We… Never really got to talk, did we? About anything when you were still yourself. I’ve held conversations with others, but never quite you. Not at any length. My memory isn’t as it should right now, so you’ll have to forgive any mistakes I make.”
Golden optics looked out from beneath a retracted visor. Holds out a glass of a liquid that seemed to shift between a heavy metal liquid and smoke. It was perfectly safe as Primus himself took a sip. “And I would congratulate you on beating Unicron if I wasn’t concerned for the cost and toll it’s taken on you.”
To him, Primus looked like ancient depictions of himself, as instantly recognizable as he was to the Chaosbringer. Righteous order and violent chaos. Looking down at the drink, it was hard not to be reminded of the last time he’d been made to share one with his opposite. There was even pain in his chest now as there was back then, though from something closer to grief than anger. Taking the strange drink, Megatron stares into its swirling mist rather than partake just yet.
“Not since you claimed I was not unworthy of you. Not since you… Prophet said that he would try to cleanse my frame of dark energon if I asked.” There goes the drink, half-downed in one swig.
“…This wretched cost was worth being free of him again.”
The most suspicious of looks is plastered on his face as he joins the god, still looking as if Unicron stretched and contorted him in several directions.
Rung tensed as he heard the bang of boards against the side of the building, light illuminating everything before a loud snap resounded and all the power was cut off, leaving him with just biolights. His hands shook as he moved slowly to a cabinet, looking for something more to give him light.
“We should visit an organic world, like Earth sometime. Being in the rain is more pleasant when it isn’t melting through your plating.”
Ah, Sentinel. He really was a horrible product of the old regime in any universe, wasn’t he? At least Megatron knew for a fact that his was dead. After all, he’d been the one to relieve him of his helm… and of something else. Covering the reaching servo with his own, the warlord held it to his cheek, before turning his helm just enough to be able to kiss Rung’s palm.
“It may entertain you to learn this, then. Certain relics from the past could only be used by those who had held the Matrix. I needed a way to use them for myself… so I found Sentinel’s grave and his arm, for a time, became my own.” Megatron smiled just enough that his dental plates glinted in the dim light.
“He always saw people as tools. I thought it rather fitting to reduce him to one in the end.”
“I don’t find it entertaining, but I can’t say that he didn’t deserve it.” Rung pressed his helm to Megatron’s chassis.
Did he ever really forgive Sentinel? He wasn’t entirely certain, but it felt like a moot point since that horrible bot wasn’t around anymore. He couldn’t torment anyone now and that’s what was truly important.
“I just don’t understand how the Matrix could ever accept him. It was never meant for bots who could do the things that he did.” Rung spoke softly, shivering as he saw a flash of lightening from the corner of his optic. “Things got so twisted and it… it hurts to see what happened to it. What happened because of it.”
Megatron instinctively held Rung closer, optics narrowing as he scowled in the lamplight. “I never could understand it, myself. I used to justify it by thinking it was just an ancient power source, that it was the council who decided who would carry it next. …That would have made things so much simpler.” He tucked the smaller mech up under his chin, partly to further protect him from the storm and partly to hide his distant expression.
You’ve never been unworthy, Megatron. Not now and not ever…
It really shouldn’t fluster him so to hear Rung call him that. He thinks for a moment before typing his response.
::As far as I can remember, they were created together. Either that, or they just always were, but they were always together, and always at war. Light and Darkness, Order and Chaos, entirely opposite sides of ultimate power, too equal for one to destroy the other. Primus made the original Thirteen and their implements to fight Unicron, because by nature he cannot create something that isn’t himself. Together, they cast him out, but Primus had used most of his energy to make them and became dormant, becoming Cybertron.::
::This is what we were taught, but I’ve… seen more, in my brushes with both. Our elders didn’t seem to know that they call each other brothers, or that Primus never wanted them to fight. They want to be one but can’t, both drawn to and repelled by the other like magnets.::
He feels the pull again. The voice, the ache in his helm and his chest. It’s blessedly faint today, but it’s there. His frame and optics glow their unnatural purple and Megatron does his best to distract himself with anything that isn’t remotely related to Unicron. It only half-works.
“I did what needed to be done.” When last they spoke, Rigel did not seem keen on looking at him ever again. Why should he care about this?
“Not whole- Of course I’m not! Ancient swords do not leave small wounds, and by all rights, by all medical tests I should not have survived. I am fractured and yet my spark still spins, all thanks to this insidious energy.”
“Are you here to tell me that you would remove it from me and heal such damage yourself? That you can and you will out of the “goodness of your all-knowing spark”?”
“It isn’t impossible to do so, Megatron. The risks of doing so run high that one or both of us could die. The backlash of Dark Energon wouldn’t just hit me. Primus would suffer in ways I can’t foresee.
“If it worked? Your spark would no longer be corrupted. It’d be as whole as Primus himself could make it without giving you an entirely new spark. Course… this is your spark and you’re entire frame being purged… and that isn’t something to risk lightly. Nor something I would even ask of you.”
Prophet sighed heavily. “No, Megatron. I would because you would ask if of me. That is assuming you could ever place that sort of trust in a bridge long since burned to ashes.
“I want to see you well again. Not for my sake, not the one who asked me, but so you can thrive and see your Cybertron into the age it deserves under your hand.”
“Then why even offer?!” he shot back, voice full of venom. “Don’t you think that I want this too? That I would love nothing more than to be free of this infection? But even if it works, even if we survive relatively unscathed, I will be weak. Without the Dark Energon sustaining me, the strain on my spark could render me unable to perform my duties, unable to defend my status… this planet!!”
He turned away, arms spread wide. “If I let this go on, I’m leaving us all open to Unicron’s whim, whenever he decides he’s strong enough to return. If I ask for you to remove it, I’m making myself and Cybertron vulnerable to any number of threats!” Slowly his arms lowered. Megatron’s plating remained flared, visibly agitated. “And that’s only if I live.”
“We’re in this situation because of my own rash decision. I can’t make another of the same nature so quickly, only to come to find later that I made the same mistake.”
“Not as difficult as you’d think. You did something right by him after all. How about the state of your spark, Megatron, for starters. You may still be corrupted, but I can feel you’re not completely whole.”
“I did what needed to be done.” When last they spoke, Rigel did not seem keen on looking at him ever again. Why should he care about this?
“Not whole- Of course I’m not! Ancient swords do not leave small wounds, and by all rights, by all medical tests I should not have survived. I am fractured and yet my spark still spins, all thanks to this insidious energy.”
“Are you here to tell me that you would remove it from me and heal such damage yourself? That you can and you will out of the “goodness of your all-knowing spark”?”
Megatron's back up 